As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Today's information handling systems, in particular server systems, comprise often a plurality of sub-systems. Each sub-system can be an independent computer system running its own operating system. For example, a sub-system can comprise a multiple processor architecture running a WINDOWS® operating system. These sub-systems can thus be fully operational computer systems, for example, personal computers or servers which could be coupled with a keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc. However, in particular server sub-systems do not require specific I/O devices as a main or controlling system handles all configuration and operation procedures.
A plurality of those sub-systems can be linked and coordinated through a specific dedicated management bus system or a backplane which can be coupled with an embedded server management controller. To this end, each sub-system comprises a so called bridge to couple with the dedicated bus system. A concern with such systems is often management of the power distribution in such systems. Prior art systems comprise either no power management or each server system comprises an individual power switch. Other modular systems comprise means to individually turn on and off modular elements of a server for power saving reasons, in particular in combination with a so-called sleep modus in which unused modules of a system are shut off if their functionality is not required for a specific period of time. Such a power management system requires significant hardware and software to turn on and off the specific modules. In addition, such a system does not allow the general management of a power distribution within a system comprising a plurality of independent sub-systems.